Using insights from behavioral science, a Holocaust survivor explores how evil actions can seem "moral" to the perpetrators and how we must alter our thinking to prevent this.

Confronting Evil describes Fred Emil Katz's two journeys in response to surviving the Holocaust. One journey is that of a survivor who tries to come to terms with his own survival, and who must cope with survival guilt as well as the sense of rootlessness that can go along with it. The other journey is that of a behavioral scientist who, after years of psychological denial, develops new ways of understanding and addressing genocide and other acts of social evil.

In an attempt to respond constructively to some of the major horrors of the past one hundred years, Katz emphasizes the moral context under which we live, which he calls the "Local Moral Universe." This Local Moral Universe can provide the umbrella for the most magnificently humane activities, yet it can also underwrite horrendously evil deeds. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how this Local Moral Universe comes about, how it exists as a distinct and identifiable entity, and the impact it has on human behavior. Only then can societies hope to prevent such horrors from happening in the future.

"With a riveting story, Katz has demonstrated inspiring courage in embarking on a path to rediscover his childhood experiences and to use his scientific knowledge to find tentative solutions to curtailing the evil tendencies within each of us."  Kirkus Discoveries

"Katz offers a refreshing approach to a confounded, painful, and sometimes suffocating subject that we'd all avoid if it weren't so important. The fact that he approaches it from the sources of his own life, and confronts real situations and people in his hometown in Germany as well as his own reactions to them, and then digs through and analyzes those reactions, gives his theoretical discussions a basis and makes them come alive with meaning and import not only for himself but also for his readers."  Walter Reich, editor of Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind and former Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Fred Emil Katz is a former Professor of Sociology who taught at various universities in the United States and Israel, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil: A Report on the Beguilings of Evil, also published by SUNY Press, and Immediacy: How Our World Confronts Us and How We Confront Our World.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. A Visit: Beginning the First Journey

1. All in One Day

II. Beyond Surviving: More of the First Journey

2. The Bitburg Affair
3. Surviving the Holocaust: The Pain and Reward of Confronting the Future in a Personal Way

III. Dissecting Evil: The Second Journey

4. Unpleasant Surprises
5. The Local Moral Universe
6. A Look at Implementation of the Holocaust 7. The Routinization of Evil
8. A Career in Doing Evil: The Case of a Sensitive Physician
9. A Sponsorship of Evil: The Nazi Package as a Moral Mantle
10. Enjoyment of Evil: Cultures of Cruelty
11. Mind-Set of the Terrorist